


Life Is Supposed To Go On

by Wealthywetsunny



Category: Call of Duty (Video Games)
Genre: Adler has a bone to pick after Bell betrayed them, Au of sorts, F/M, Follows original female character meant to be Bell's child, I have no idea where this is going so bear with me, If this continues idk, Just self indulgent trash :), Once again no idea what's happening, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Takes place years after the events in game, There might be flashbacks to Adler/Bell relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 09:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29573991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wealthywetsunny/pseuds/Wealthywetsunny
Summary: She’s staring at herself in the mirror, eyes closing then opening.Closed...Open.Closed...Open.Nothing changes in the span of those few seconds trapped in darkness, but she still hopes. She waits for something to click and realizes that nothing is coming.
Relationships: Russell Adler/Bell, Russell Adler/Original Female Characters(s)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

She’s staring at herself in the mirror, eyes closing then opening. 

Closed...Open. 

Closed...Open. 

Nothing changes in the span of those few seconds trapped in darkness, but she still hopes. She waits for something to click and realizes that nothing is coming.

It’s working. A fine tremor runs through her and she knows he’s tracking her movements, that he sees her fear behind the two sided plexi-glass and the cameras strewn about. If this isn’t some sort of hell then she’s not sure what is. 

She steps away from the mirror, scared once more when she hardly recognizes the person staring back. She takes her long hair in her fist and holds it up close to her scalp, some form of an updo that feels more _ right _ . That person looks more familiar. Her hands shake and she drops the bundle of hair, letting the waves cascade down her shoulders and frame her face. She knows, in an awful twisted sort of way, that he’s stealing her memories away. That right now she can’t even recall her name, much less where she was two weeks ago. Is it even worth fretting over? If she can’t stop the holes he’s making?

For now, she decides the answer is a resounding no, and so she flops down on a nearby cot, curling up on her side and hugging her torso. It’s times like these, all alone with just her train of thought for company, that she rebuilds herself. As painful as it is, her temples throbbing with effort of thinking too hard, she has to do it. She can’t forget. Sometimes it’s work. She thinks. It’s been weeks now, she thinks, and she’s still hanging in there, so her own impromptu therapy sessions must be doing something.

When the door opens later, though how later she can’t say, she tenses. Muscle memory at this point, even if a majority of those memories are fading slowly. What she does know is the rough sound of his voice, a near constant at this point, the only thing that makes her feel safe. Funny, really, when not even a few hours ago she heard him holler and yell at his comrades. 

Some petty disagreement, he had explained away when she raised an eyebrow as he stepped back into her empty room.

She cranes her head around to look at him, notes the bags under his eyes but otherwise she stays silent. No greeting shared between them save for a glance.

“Dinner,” he says curtly, bending down to lay a plastic bowl on the floor. He shoves it forward and she feels it bump against the mattress she’s laying on. “You should eat. You’re getting thin.”

She closes her eyes tight. Flinching when he lays a hand on her shoulder to shove her flat on her back. Nowhere to hide. She feels his intimidating presence looming above her, confirmed when he grabs hold of her jaw and tightens his grip. It’s not enough to be painful, but she still snaps her eyes open anyhow.

“Eat, kid. Or do you need my help again?”

Her face scrunches up, nose wrinkling in such a way that draws his eyes down to the rabbit like twitching. “‘Again?’” She echos, confusion clouding her features. He shoots her a glare, the kind she knows too well, and she quickly moves to sit up. Putting some space between them.

He hums, moving into a crouch to shove the bowl into her hands. He fiddles with a watch on his wrist, scarily silent as she spoons lukewarm oatmeal past her lips. Her hand shakes, the muscles weak from however many days she spent starving. Her decision, she remembers that. 

“D’you know my name?” He asks her, eyes now locked on hers firmly. This...feels like a test. She raises her chin up and nods. “What is it then?”

“Adler.”

He gives a slight smile and she breathes a sigh of relief. 

“Good. Do you know why you’re here?”

“Mhm. You want information.” She shoves another spoonful in her mouth, talking around it rudely. “I know someone, and you want her. You aren’t too good at your job.”

“You don’t think so?”

“No...No I don’t. I get what you’re trying to do and it’s not working nearly as well as it should be. As you want it to.” She puts the food down, momentarily forgotten about so she can lean in closer to him. Her eyes flit across his face, obscured by too large sunglasses but otherwise showing off everything else. Every detail that she commits to memory so when she gets out of here she can track him down and kill him. Her mother has taken down bigger men than him, she’ll teach her. 

Adler doesn’t back down, if anything he follows up her challenge by reciprocating the move, leaning forward on his toes. Forearms steadying himself on his knees. At first it seems like another test just to see what she’ll do when staring down the enemy so directly, but then his exterior cracks and the corner of his lips tilt up.

“What’s your name, kid?”

She falters. That smug expression she held so well now dropping. “I--” she sucks in a breath and hangs her head, rubbing at her eyes, muttering a sharp “I know this,” when he huffs. She looks around wildly, as if the answer is hidden somewhere within the walls. Then she settles back on his face, like they’ve had this conversation before, and something clicks. A triggering of deja vu buried deep inside her that makes her perk up.  “Anya!” She laughs, canines biting holes in her bottom lip when his face falls. Annoyed, angry or surprised, she can’t tell. “It’s Anya, isn’t it? I’m right?” She reaches out for him, grabbing his bicep with both hands and giving him a shake. Hoping he’ll share in her excitement. 

As strange as it may be she forgot he was the enemy for a second. That’s all it takes. A second of weakness. So when he slaps her she howls in unrestrained shock. Falling back completely with a whine. He stands up and glares down at her, and if not for the glasses hiding his expression then she would see the flicker of pity in his eyes when she holds her throbbing cheek.

“It’d be better to stop fighting this. The CIA will do good by you, just let us.”

He turns on his heel to leave, halfway across the room before she finds the courage to speak again.

“Adler…what do you want with my mother?”

He doesn’t answer her, but she sees the way he inhales sharply, how his shoes squeak on the linoleum floor as his steps grow weary. The slam of the metal door fills her ears and she curls back up, left alone and afraid once more.

*****

Too curious for her own good, that’s what Adler had said last night. After she had stepped out of the shower and was toweling herself dry, mind abuzz with questions. He had his back turned but she could still see the spirals of cigarette smoke curling up above their heads in the confines of the bathroom.

She tried prying, a little too much. She showed her hand too early, keeps showing her hand actually, letting on that whatever the CIA is trying to do to her isn’t working that well. Her memories are fragmented, slipping away occasionally, but they’re hardly gone. Definitely not replaced with whatever he’s trying to drill into her head.

The point is, Anya should know being nosey, eavesdropping of all things, is a bad fucking idea. But she’s  _ bored.  _ And Adler left her alone in a corridor she’s sure she’s never seen before, so exploration was only natural. She’ll be sure to tell him that when he inevitably catches her snooping. Which is bound to happen now that she’s got herself pushed up against an intersection’s wall, peering around the corner to try and hear the voices floating towards her.

There’s an open door, a metal plaque faded on the front that she can’t read from this distance. A tiny ray of light is flooding out into the hallway, a lamp maybe, and that’s where she hears a fresh voice. Apart from Adler--the man who’s been her whole world since they stole her away.

“Using the same name is...weird, isn’t it?”

“It’s just a fucking code name, don’t think too deeply about it.”

Anya scrunches her face up, nails biting into her palm at the sharpness in his voice. He’s angry, teetering on the edge of yelling.

Someone, the woman she’s never heard before, sighs heavily. “Adler--”   
  
“Drop it, Park. I know what I’m doing. I don’t need everyone up my ass watching me like I’m gonna break.”

“It’s just, after Bell...”

_ Park. Bell.  _ Anya tucks those names away for later. Information to hold above his head maybe, to keep her alive.

She leans forward, her side pushing into the cement wall as she strains to hear. Adler’s voice drops into a low, threatening pitch. “Stop. You’re treading on mighty thin ice here. I’m  _ fine _ . Okay? What happened with Bell...It was the ending we all knew was coming.”

“C’mon, if you really thought she was going to sell us out you wouldn’t have so readily trusted her when she told us to run to Duga. She fucked us over and we believed her.” The woman snorts, and though Anya is far from seeing the two agents she can picture how his friend has her arms crossed over her chest, a slight knowing look on her face when she continues. “You’re pissed she changed sides.”

“You aren’t?”

“Of course we were.” A pause. Maybe just a look passed between them. “ _ Were _ , Adler. That was years ago, we have other jobs that don’t involve her or Perseus. Not now at least. Life goes on.”

“I know.”

“So why take her kid?”

Aha. Bingo. That’s what Anya needed to confirm. This man, these strangers, knew her mother. Not only that. They _ hated  _ her mother. Anya would go as far as to say they want her dead by the way they talk, such malice in their voices from a mistake that sounds as if it happened decades ago. That’s why she’s here, a link--possibly the only one--Adler has to get to her mom.

“It was a lucky find,” Adler explains away easily. “I didn’t track the brat down myself. I’m an opportunist though, and Woods and I came across her. ID’d her”

“Right. And I do hope you know what you’re doing?  _ MK-Ultra _ has never been tested on someone so young in such a short time span. You’re cramming a lot of intel into her.”

“She’s 18, she’ll take to it just like the Bell before her did.”

Anya cowers, head ducking back around the corner. She’s shaking, she realizes, trembling minutely.  _ The Bell before her.  _ Of course they’ve done this before, Adler fell into the role so easily, like second nature. As simple as breathing. 

Are those people alive still? Stuck thinking they’re a part of an allegiance they never really had? Or were they killed, a bullet between the eyes because they outlived their usefulness.

Out of all the things her mother prepared her for, CIA interrogation tactics like this weren't on the list. She knew how to shoot a BB at deer scampering through the woods, how to block someone’s swing with a knife, lashing out at their arm in retaliation--just enough to get away. And if all else fails, then she learned which soft, fleshy parts to aim for to bring the strongest man down.

But this is different. She’s scared.

Anya creeps back down the hall, hearing one last thing before she goes.

“Fine. Just...for the sake of the rest of the team, think of a different name.”

*****

Anya’s never seen him before, but he reminds her of a Soviet officer she knew once. A friend of her mother’s. Alexei. He taught her how to ride a horse once. One of her fondest memories from her childhood, when her mother was finally healing from whatever baggage she picked up along her way in life. 

She reels her thoughts back in, focuses instead on the man puttering around the staff room she wandered upon. Sipping at too hot coffee that must burn his bearded upper lip because he’s quick to pull back and swear. He’s got an accent like her own, American like Adler and unlike his lady friend. Park. He could pass for a Russian, and the familiarity this stranger stirs in her chest has her pitching forward. Homesickness taking over, making her freeze when his eyes slide up and catch hers. His instincts are good, she should have considered that though, he’s in this line of work for a reason.

He takes her in, her curly brown hair tangled up like a rat’s nest, her oversized t-shirt that falls past her thighs to hide her shorts. The cuts and bruises that decorate her skin. Not a threat, he decides, she sees that click in his head. He finds her eyes again, just as he goes to sit down in a chair and reaches for a nearby newspaper. He raises his coffee mug to her in a sort of silent salute and her lip quirks up. Intrigued and amused. 

Strange how human interaction, or lack thereof, has such a profound effect on people. It’s surely taken its toll on her. She’s only been around Adler, and now she’s aching to run and sit across from this enemy. To hear a new voice, gaze at a new personality. To maybe find some warmth.

He speaks first. Saving her from her messy thoughts.

“You’re that kid we found in Seversk. Wondered what Adler did with ya.” He sips at his coffee, wincing at the burn. “Where’d he take you off to, anyway? He was mighty interested in getting you back in one piece.”

Anya blinks owlishly, her voice trapped in her throat. He was there that terrifying now? Maybe he was, it was dark though, and they were dressed head to toe in their uniform. Only their eyes peeking through. She glances back down the hall, listening for footsteps or shouts. An alarm even. Anything that might signal that Adler is tearing this place down looking for her. But nothing. It’s quiet.

The man shifts in his chair, making it grind down roughly on the tile and she whirls back around. He eyes her, frowning. “You’re jumpy. Take a seat.” It doesn’t sound like a demand, not how Adler would say it, and that at least calms her.

“You’re a bit young to be a new recruit.” He tips his head, staring at her while she slides into the chair across from him, similarly cushioned like his own. 

She shrugs. Cursing herself. She’s never been shy, but she realizes that this isn’t her nerves stirring up. This is fear. Pounded into her after weeks spent with Adler.

“You speak English?”

“Y-yeah. Of course.” 

He grunts. Sips at his coffee. “You don’t sound Russian.”

_ That  _ startles a real laugh out of her, and just like that the ice between them, the tension and anxiety cracks and falls away. “I am though. Both my parents are, but I grew up in America. I...I was on vacation. Family business or whatever.” She waves her hand dismissively and he doesn’t pry.

Anya decides she likes him.

“Name’s Woods, never got the chance to introduce myself. Had a lotta shit going on at the time. Still do, actually, job’s never fucking done.” He lets go of the newspaper he was glancing over with a sigh, throwing it out across the table. She has to keep herself from tearing into it, to find the date at least. She sits on her hands. Focusing on him when he keeps on talking. “Did Adler say ‘hello,’ properly? He can be a mean son of a bitch.”

Anya twists in her seat, eyes darting down. Does this man know her mother like Adler does? Does he know about  _ mk-ultra _ , that he’s trying to wipe her memories away until she’s nothing more than a search and point dog? Would he try to help or even begin to understand?

She opens her mouth to speak, not even entirely sure what she’s about to say, but a voice behind her makes her freeze.

“There you are, kid, was looking for you.”

Her head ducks and her shoulders crawl up around her neck when he grabs her by the back of her shirt. Yanking her to her feet. He regards Woods, giving a testing smile that the man doesn’t return.  _ Good,  _ she thinks,  _ help me. Say something.  _

“Thought I told you not to move.”

She nods. Swallows. “You were taking too long.” She panics as he just raises an eyebrow over the rim of his aviators, and she hurries to correct herself. “I had to pee.”

“Hold it in next time, okay?” His hand drops from her shirt, loosening his hold on her to instead rest on her shoulder. It’s a painful reminder of her mother, the kind of action she’d do whenever she was nervous and needed to ground herself. But his touch lacks any warmth. “C’mon, I’ll take you now.” He turns her around sharply, knocking her hip into the table. It shakes from the force and she mutters a curse in poor Russian, ignoring his curious look. 

“And Woods?”

“Yeah, Doc?”

“I need you in the break room in about 15, with Park and Hudson.”

She cranes her neck around to watch his expression. It’s a mask of indifference, giving nothing away. And just like that, as if flipping a switch, he’s a soldier once more. “And Mason?”

“Nah. He won’t be back from Tuvalu for about another week. I’ll recommend him for this case though.”

They leave it at that, but Anya catches the spark of curiosity and concern in Woods’ eyes. She holds onto that, that glimmer of hope she gets from talking to someone so seemingly normal. Her mom once told her that not all Americans were bad, that she should be proud to have been raised away from the madness she got sucked into.

A madness she never shared with her daughter. It was always later. When you’re older. Now they may never have that chance, it seems stupid to not have been honest when they were all they had in this world. Stupid because now Anya is paying for her mother’s mistakes. A flash of anger runs through her sharply.

She sucks in a breath, trying to keep up with Adler’s long strides. They pass through a maze of hallways that she memorizes until she’s got a near perfect layout inside her head. If she’s gotta run...well she’ll be able to get as far as the break room. And that’s better than nothing.

They come upon the bathroom and Adler takes up position beside the door, making escape impossible if she were ever stupid enough to try and burst through the doors and run when coming out. But she knows from past experiences that he’ll hear everything she’s doing in there. And the thing is…

“You don’t really have to go, do you?”

She flinches and looks down at her feet. A small, barely there shake of her head. 

“Just wanted to stretch your legs?”

“Sure…”

He hums, going to light a cigarette. Turning his head slightly so after he drags in a breath he can release the smoke away from her. Her heart constricts at the action, so considerate juxtaposed to how he’s been treating her. Going to beat answers out of her because his initial plan to trick her, to manipulate her with syrupy sweet lies didn’t work at all. 

“We’ve gotta get back to the lab then, continue our sessions. This should be the last one. We’re running out of time,” he says.

“Can I ask you something, at least?”

“Anything. Sure.”

“My mother...You asked me about her, you wanna find her.”

He peers at her out of the corner of his eye. “That’s not a question.”

“Y-yeah. Right. She’s...Did you hurt her?”  _ Are you the reason why she wakes up at night screaming? Why she moved halfway across the world in isolation? Why she was so damn scared to show her face again? _

He laughs, a short burst of a sound that is cruel more than anything. He jams his cigarette into the cement wall beside him, stubbing the light out to turn to her. He grabs her chin, tilting her head up so their heights are more evenly matched. 

“Try the other way around, kid. You don’t know how bad of a person your mom really is.” His grip tightens, anger bleeding through as he lifts her on her tiptoes. “In fact, how about I show you what we’re fighting for? Let me enlighten you.” He yanks her forward, his hand going to settle on the back of her neck. “Come on."


	2. Chapter 2

The files weren’t as damning as she had expected them to be. In fact, she could hardly read a thing. Not only because a lot of the phrases were a bunch of military mumbo jumbo that didn’t make a lick of sense, but also because of the sentences that have been slashed out with black marker. With the tip of her finger she traces the blackened lines, wondering what information it’s hiding.

Anyone could write their own narrative when they only show half the story, so she’ll take these typed out words with a grain of salt. But Adler watches her intently like this should mean something.

“Stupid,” she mutters, flipping through a stack of papers. “What does this prove?”

He sighs and in her periphery she watches him shift on his heels. Leaning up against the closed door with a slight frown.

“Did your mom ever tell you she was a communist?”

Anya closes her eyes, nervous and scared and close to passing out. Her hands shake and she steps back, away from the table littered with incriminating documents. She doesn’t want to say that her mom didn’t tell her much of anything about her past, that it was such a sore spot that Anya figured something awfully traumatic gave her PTSD or something like that. Messed her head up bad. If she said that...it would’ve felt like admitting defeat.

She feels a sharp pang of shame rush through her, towards her family and her mom especially. The guilt follows quickly after. She’s the worst daughter in the world. 

Her silence speaks volumes, whether she wants it to or not.

“Did she tell you about us?”

A lump forms in her throat.  _ No,  _ she wants to yell,  _ she never did, but that doesn’t make her a bad mother.  _

He wouldn’t understand, he’d take her answer as some sort of victory. Like he’s so much better than her family.

She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath that shakes on the inhale. Breathe in, count to five, hold for ten, let it go. Just like her mom taught her.

“Kid.” Adler’s shoes squeak on the tile when he walks forward. His hand settling on her shoulder. She doesn’t move, standing as still as a statue, she won’t give him the satisfaction of making her flinch away.

Her mom once told her that she was strong. That they came from a long line of survivors. Though she shut down when Anya pushed the subject more than she should’ve. Asking questions her mom didn’t answer.  _ If that’s true, because her mom did seem so convinced that it was, then tell me about my grandparents. Your siblings, if you have any at all, shouldn’t I have met anyone? Cousins? Aunts and Uncles? My own goddamn father? _

She’s never been afraid that her mother would strike her, but in that moment Anya felt like she wanted to. Her mom was better than that though, she walked away in a huff, rouge coloring her cheeks that was more than just her make-up.

Thus was what her mom was hiding from her. Keeping her ignorant and unaware. These people that are obviously a part of her checkered past who want to hurt them. That raises more questions then she cares to think about. Like why the fuck did they ever leave America?

Anya wants to ask a million things, she wants to be the one questioning him, but that would show weakness. She wouldn’t be able to hide her desperation though, and so she keeps her mouth shut. Quietly and obediently trailing along beside him as he takes her out of the sealed up room and down the winding halls.

Back to the exam room. Where she’s been spending a majority of her time.

Adler points to the chair, the one with the high back and metal cuffs to secure her wrists and ankles down. In front of it there’s a white plastic screen that folds up into the ceiling, its projector turned off for now but ready to go at the press of a button. 

She sits without protest. No need to fight. They’ve forced her before, so much stronger than her that it really only takes one of them, but they always use two, the other training a gun on her, aimed at the center of her chest.

A choked sigh slips past her lips, she’s nervous, always is. But the thought that this may be the last time she remembers her old life...It’s terrifying. And so she tries not to think about it, even if that’s virtually impossible when she’s sitting in this chair. 

Adler secures her limbs down tightly, his face schooled into a stoney mask. If she didn’t know any better she’d say he doesn’t care about her well-being in the slightest, but he takes the time to rub around her skin to soothe the chafing marks that have formed over the past few weeks. 

Or has it been months?

She’s losing track of time.

He steps back and she wiggles her fingers. Gripping onto the edge of the arm on the chair for comfort. Her eyes trail up, at the empty screen then off towards the left. Where the two way glass is spanning the width of the wall. They seem to have that set up in every room she’s been taken to. Always watching.

Now the worst part, the one that makes her feel more like a caged animal than human. Nothing more than a guinea pig ready to be poked and prodded at. She looks up at Adler with large doe eyes, every time she tries this, to appear lost and afraid, just to see if he has a heart. 

It doesn’t work, never does, but she wouldn’t forgive herself if she didn’t give it a shot. He’s cold inside. This job weathered him, in fact he’s probably done more heinous shit than this. It makes sense now, why he’s the one doing all this to her. Those people out there, the ones that always watch but never interact, they’d feel bad. That woman he’d been speaking to, Park she remembers, she seemed nice. She must’ve felt some sort of sympathy. 

He moves behind her, grabbing the thick nylon band and wrapping it across her forehead. Keeping her from looking away, from thrashing. She’s immobilized. She  _ hates  _ it. 

Adler, satisfied that she’s locked down and won’t be getting out, moves to turn the projector on. He puts in a roll of slides and it clicks as he cycles through them. Pictures she’s seen before, save for a few. They’ve been adding more and more each time. Too many to keep track of honestly.

Someone knocks on the door they came in through and Adler doesn’t miss a beat. Hardly surprised at the interruption. She can’t see who’s there, the door is directly behind her. 

Before the door shuts, before he has a chance to leave, she dares to ask “did you do this to my mom?”

She doesn’t get an answer. He doesn’t even pause. Just walks out and closes the door behind him.

Anya counts to one hundred in her head before the lights go out and it begins.

*****

“Hey? You with us?”

There’s a light in her eyes. A voice that’s thick like gravel, hardly getting through. 

“Stupid, Adler, I told you this was a bloody stupid thing to do to a child.” Someone curses. Sounding tired. “I still can’t believe the CIA approved this.”

“You can give me shit later, okay? Can you fix her?”

“‘Fix her?’ Dear god, she’s not a car, just...step back and give me some room.”

Darkness consumes her again. The light shining above is blessedly gone for the moment. She tries moving her limbs but nothing happens. Her fingers won’t move, her toes can’t wiggle in her socked feet. So she floats in the darkness, her brain sluggishly moving along. Playing catch up in a sense.

Her body is tingling, nerve endings screaming in pain so intense she feels herself slipping away until her whole world goes topsy turvy and her feet get forced under her. Her arms pinwheel to keep herself from falling, though she can just barely register hands on her shoulders to stop her from toppling over.

“Anya—“

“Don’t call her that!”

“Adler...I really could care less about your damn pet project. I kept you from killing Bell and I intend to do the same with her child.” 

She sways slightly, struggling to open her eyes. It hurts, the overhead lights that is, and her eyes water instantly. Retinas burning. Someone in front of her, just a blurry shape behind the curtain of tears, wipes at her wet cheeks with their thumb.

“There you are,” the voice says softly, cooing in a familiar way she can’t quite put her finger on. “We thought we lost you. Your heart stopped for a few minutes.”

It did? She tries to force the question out past her lips but nothing comes out. Just a whimper. Her tongue feels thick, stuck to the roof of her mouth.

The woman looks away from her, turning her head to glance over her own shoulder. She would raise her head a little to look but she’s dead tired and the muscles in her neck are struggling as is.

“Some of us have kids, Adler, I know you wouldn’t understand—“

“You got spawn of your own running around somewhere? Never knew that.”

She scoffs. “Not me, you idiot. Do you not know anything about the team you worked with on arguably the biggest mission in your life?”

The man has no response for that. She’s honestly having a hard time keeping up with the conversation so she can’t tell if his lack of words is a good thing or not. 

“Before you gathered us all in the break room...Some of the guys had a few choice words they didn’t dare voice to you.” The woman focuses back on her, hands tightening on her shoulders and she asks a question that should be simple.

“What’s your name?”

She opens her eyes, mouth moving slowly as she unsticks her tongue and moves it across the back of her teeth. Top row then bottom. Tasting her own mouth and belatedly thinking that she could really use some mouthwash or a dab of toothpaste.

“Honey?”

Her eyes meet the stranger’s, breath stuttering as images flick around in her head. Half formed memories that fly around until she’s finally able to grasp one. A woman’s voice, sweet and kinder than any she’s ever known. Murmuring children’s books and singing lullabies. Calling her pet names, her favorite of all:  _ мёд. Honey. _

The accent is wrong though...but maybe...she’s remembering wrong? Her gut says this is right, that in a heartbeat she’d be able to recognize her own damn family. And so she swallows, meets the woman’s gaze and asks a hesitant “ мама ?”

The woman stills, eyes blowing wide in surprise, and for a horrible few moments she fears that she’s gotten it wrong. That something terrible happened and her fragmented memories are in worse shape than she thinks, that she can’t even remember her own mom. But then the man laughs, her gaze sluggishly moving to him. Noting his slight smile.

“Perfect, kid.” Then, not directed at her, “looks like you guys got what you wanted, huh Park? She’s  _ fine.  _ C’mon, lets go tell the others what we’re dealing with now.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a short filler chapter!

Amnesia. The word makes his head hurt, ironically enough, even after mulling it over for an hour. He can’t quite understand how it went wrong. 

He lights a cigarette, futilely hoping that it will stop his shaking hands. 

Alder knows how Bell views him. A monster, first and foremost, someone to be hated and feared. A boogeyman to fold stories around so their kids stay in line. He’s come to terms with that, it’s fine. 

It has to be fine. 

But amnesia? No…no, he didn’t mean for that to happen. Never, in a million years, had it ever crossed his mind. It wouldn’t aid their mission in the slightest, but it was more than that. 

Something else is bothering him. 

He stubs his cigarette out, not even halfway done, on the tabletop in front of him. It creates a burnt little ring that he rubs away with his index finger. 

“Doc, are you ready?”

Despite himself he flinches, just a tiny cringe that he’s sure Sims picked up on. They’ve been through a hell of a lot together for him to not read Adler so well. 

He doesn’t look up right away, he leans back in his chair, legs stretching and joints popping before he finally nods. There isn’t a whole lot of confidence behind it, but no one can fault him for that. They’re all nervous with this new development, him more so, because it’s his fault. He pushed and he pushed and he kept on going. Treating the red flags like fucking checkpoints. 

“Doc?”

“I’ll be there in a sec.”

Sims closes the door, leaving him alone in the dimly lit office once more. 

It’s going to be hard to hide this mistake. A cover up won’t be easy, he's not sure he can manage it actually. And that’s what sets his heart pounding again. The idea that even all these years later it’s going to be Bell that tears his life apart. Starting with his career. 

He’s in the mess because of her. 

Dear god he’s never hated someone as much as he hates her at this moment. The way she left...without even a fucking goodbye. 

That push of anger is all he needs. A reminder of sorts that he doesn’t have the luxury of feeling sorry for Anya. That’s not his job. 

He gets up and heads for the door, lighting another cigarette as he goes.

*****

She’s crying when he walks in. Curled into a tight ball on a cot that makes her look smaller than she actually is. Her hair, the same dark brown as Bell’s, hangs in her eyes. Shielding her scared expression. 

A tiny whine eaks past her lips when he walks in, the door slamming shut behind him. He locks it, and the sound is so loud in the otherwise quiet room that she jumps.

Sims and Park said they were making progress, but this doesn’t look promising at all. 

But then Park says “she knows her name,” and Adler gets it. It’s been a week and her memories are still elusive. So yeah, that’s some sort of development, a step in the right direction...but it’s not enough. 

This mission was a total disaster, and if Anya wasn’t so young, if she wasn’t Bell’s child...Adler wouldn’t hesitate to shoot her. A bullet to the back of the head when she’s got her attention elsewhere. 

She wouldn’t feel a thing. 

And looking at her now, he’s thinking something like that would be a mercy kill. 

His fingers twitch by his side. Itching for stimulation. Another cigarette, a gun or a loose pen to click. The room is bare save for the bed though, and so he just shoves his hands in the front pocket of his jeans.

The sound of her cries is starting to grate on his nerves. He directs his attention towards Park, clearing his throat so she looks at him. “Is that all you wanted to show me?” 

“Adler—“

“I’ve got some calls to make. Need to work up a new plan...you two are handling her just fine. You didn’t need to call me in here to see…” he waves his hand in Anya’s direction, “this.”

Park gets up slowly, hands raising to fiddle with the scarf wrapped snug around her throat. A nervous habit, the same need to be doing something with your hands that Adler has. 

“I had a question to ask you actually.” She looks at Anya, a flicker of something human in her eyes that he’s always made a point of trying to hide in himself. “Let’s talk outside.”

The door is barely shut before she’s laying into him, arms crossed defensively and eyes narrowed in a way that makes him feel like this is an interrogation. “What was the plan, originally? What memories were you trying to implant?”

“That doesn’t matter. Not anymore.” It’s a lie really, when Anya could very easily remember the false memories he implanted instead of the real ones.

She hums, unconvinced. “So what’re we doing now?” 

“Things haven’t changed too much. With what the end goal is, I mean. We’re still looking for Bell, we’ve got her kid. And, we’ve got Anya’s memories. We know Bell is nearby, what hotel she and Anya were staying in...Its enough. It has to be.”

“And in the meantime?”

“I--What?”

She huffs, scratching at her cheek. “Are you going to go ahead with  _ mk-ultra? _ Try again?”

“Park--”

“The least you owe us is the truth, Adler.”

There’s a note of pleading he’s never heard from her before. He isn’t sure why it unnerves him so much, maybe it’s just a ploy. But it does the trick. He looks away, takes his glasses off and tucks them in the collar of his shirt before answering. “...Yeah, why not? It’d be more dangerous to leave her wondering about her identity like this.” 

She nods, and he can tell right there that she doesn’t want anything to do with this project. Which is fine by him, he’s got the rest of the old team still. She can back out if she wants, and he’ll have to do his best to make sure she doesn’t talk about this to anyone.

Bribery isn’t something he’s against at all, he just hopes she feels the same way.

“Go talk to her.”

_ For fucks sake _ . “Why?”

“Maybe you can spark a memory--”

“She’s got fucking amnesia, there’s no coming back from that.”

“Just speak to the damn kid. Stop thinking of her as a means to an end, as an experiment. Humanize her just a bit. It’ll make the rest of us feel a little better going ahead with this foolish plan.” She pauses, frowning at him. “I’m giving a call to Hudson. He hasn’t showed up yet.”

Adler nods. He knows damn well why Hudson isn’t here. He’ll let them figure it out though, saves him some time before they’re all angry with him even more than they already are. He glances at the sealed door where Anya’s being kept and asks, without looking at Park, “which name did she remember?”

“The one you gave her. That should make you happy, right?”

There’s a note of bitterness in Park’s voice, he ignores it and pushes the door open, stepping inside once more. 

Adler talks for so long that his throat aches. And Anya--Daytona--he’ll have to remember that before he slips up, hasn’t said a damn word. She glowers at him, regards him almost suspiciously.

Eventually, when he pauses and changes the station from the tiny radio he had brought in a few hours ago, she opens her mouth and clears her throat. He doesn’t pay her any mind, pretends that her speaking doesn’t affect him at all.

“I know you. I think.”

“Yeah?”

She nods slowly, watching his face for any indication that she’s right.  “Why won’t you tell me anything?”

Adler leans back in the chair he’s sat in, shifting to keep his ass from going numb. He doesn’t have an answer for that. Mostly because he isn’t sure, and that’s a hard pill to swallow. To admit that he fucked up bad, maybe worse than the Bell situation. He can’t do that yet. He’ll fix this.

“I wanted to see what would come back to you naturally.” It’s a weak argument, even to his own ears. But she just nods.

She lets on, slowly, over the course of another few hours into dinner time, that she knows Park isn’t her mom. That when she came to she was confused, that her mom used to call her honey all the time. At least she thinks so. Adler doesn’t confirm that that’s the truth, that he saw tender moments her and Bell shared as she grew up in the States.

It was a side of Bell he’s never seen, that he never thought she’d be able to grasp.

It kills him that she was such a good mom but still came back here. It doesn’t make sense, and he wishes that she broke her secretive streak and told her daughter anything of use.

It dawns on him, as she starts opening up about nothing of importance, that he’s going to have to try again. She’s a liability like this. He gets up without saying a word and she tapers off, falling silent as he walks out. Closing and locking the door softly. He leans against the metal, head thunking back with a drawn out sigh.

“Any luck?”

He closes his eyes, not daring to look over just yet. Not when he feels like such an idiot. Instead he mumbles a soft, “Woods,” in way of greeting, raising a hand weakly in what’s meant to be a wave.

“Y’know, me or Mason could give it a shot--”

“Get the tapes ready again. We’ll try again.”

“But--”

“Woods.” now he looks up, standing at his full height and trying to seem like the boss he’s supposed to be. 

“That took weeks.”

“We’ll go faster.”

He opens his mouth to argue but stops himself short. Lips pulling into a frown. He nods, a grim sort of determination washing over him that Adler recognizes when Bell started turning into...well, Bell.

“For the record, if I knew who she was, what you were going to do, I’m not sure I would have grabbed her off the streets. There were a million ways to go about this.”

Adler knows that, but he’s been dreaming of seeing Bell again for years now. He’s got a plan, he’s not about to let anyone get in the way of that.


	4. Chapter 4

She wakes up with a scream, tearing at the blankets around her. They feel like vines, keeping her pinned down and trapped in the worst kind of darkness that she desperately wants to escape. She kicks her legs out, her heel knocking against one of her bed posts, but in her hazy mind all she can register is  _ danger. _ In her fog she didn’t kick the hunk of wood belonging to her bed, but instead the wood from a beached kayak. Overturned and ridden with bullet holes, her last escape option no longer an option anymore.

Daytona screams again when the lights flick on. It's hard to make out anything past the tears, she’s still panicking, trying to run from an imaginary enemy. And so when arms wrap around her torso and hold her down, she tries to fight.

That is until she hears his voice.

“Shh, you’re fine, Day. You’re _ home.  _ Safe with me and Park in Suzdal. You’re not in danger, it was just a nightmare.”   
  
She gasps, choking on a sob that gets lodged in her throat. Her body goes limp, all the adrenaline leaving her system in an instant. She practically deflates.

“R-Russell.”

He hums, loosening his hold when he’s sure that she knows where she is. He reaches out, towards the bedside table, and hands her a glass of water she remembers him leaving there the night before. She drinks it slowly, just like he taught her to stop from gagging, to regain her senses and calm down.

When she pulls back with a gasp he asks, “what was it this time?”

Day shudders, placing the cup back a little too roughly. She yanks the blankets back up around her in a white knuckled grip that makes him frown. “Same old.” She looks down, tears welling up as images flash across her mind’s eyes that she wishes would go away. “Having to f-fight when I didn’t know how. My first kill. Being forced to be a--a soldier.” A sob breaks free from her chest and he grabs her again, wrangling her into a bear hug that’s meant to ground her.

She cries into his chest, fists weakly hitting his shoulders in a fit of helplessness.

“I was calling out for help but no one came.” Her words are muffled in his nightshirt, and he carefully pulls back to swipe at a few stray tears on her cheeks. She looks up at him with a wide doe eyed stare, bottom lip trembling. “I was  _ so scared _ .”

“I know. I know.” He pets her head, pushing her hair away from her face. “That’s not what happened though. I saved you, got you outta there in one piece, didn’t I?”

“Yeah...yeah, you did.” 

He’s about to leave, maybe ask if she thinks a shower would help, but something is still on her mind. He can tell. She still has that faraway look in her eyes that never fails to make him worry.

“What is it, kid?”

For a fleeting second she looks like she’s about to burst into tears again, but she holds it back. Puffs out her chest slightly with quivering lips. 

“I had that dream that keeps happening...the one I told you about, w-where my parents died, except...except this time, this time I-I died with them. You weren’t there.” She groans, shoving away from him to collapse back into her cocoon of blankets. From her nest she pouts at him. “I hate that dream.”

“I know.” It’s all he can offer. Placating words and the smallest affection that she’ll allow. “Didja wanna sleep with Park and I? On the blowup mattress?”

Day pauses to think, but they both know that she’ll say yes. Despite her being used to sleeping on her own, nothing but the wind for company and the stars as her backdrop. It’s become their routine ever since he brought her home from Afghanistan, waking up from a night terror and retreating back with him and Park for some shred of comfort. Like their mere presence will be enough to chase her demons away. And so she nods, knowing full well in her heart that he must care about her, that this soldier risked his life to rescue her. He wouldn’t turn her away now, when she wakes up screaming from trauma that’s only a month old. 

***** 

_ Thud. _

_ Thud. _

_ Thud. _

Hudson spares her a glance, his lower lip turning down in a frown from the constant noise. He wants to say something, but Adler is still nearby, hanging around the open kitchen making lunch, and the last time he yelled at her Adler was quick to yell right back. The sound doesn’t bother Adler, he’s the one that gave her the small bouncy ball, something to keep her mind occupied before it starts to wander.

The world is full of triggers, even in this two story house that acts as their safe space, and more often than not she’s snapped back to the past. Hearing gunfire and screams of terror. The ball helps, tossing is against the wall opposite the couch. Catching it with her right hand than her left, struggling on the latter. But Russell had said she should work on both, that it would stimulate her mind more than the numbingly easy task of tossing a ball at a wall and catching it with her dominant hand.

Hudson rarely comes over, she’s only met him twice, he certainly wasn’t back in Afghanistan. Not a soldier like Russell or Lawrance, not among those who saved her ass from death. His job is still unclear and he doesn’t seem to like her at all, maybe he doesn’t trust her. Maybe he thinks she’s aligned with foreign enemies. That her time over there changed her for good.

Which she’s not. Just another innocent caught in the crossfire. Forced to hold a gun to save her hide. Kill or be killed. That’s the game. It’s not her fault, it’s not her fault it’s not her fault  _ it’s not her fucking fault. _

“Kid.” Russell snaps her out of it, noticing the look on her face. “Go run and get Helen, food’s done.” Then, directed to Hudson, “you staying?”

Day stops with the ball, shoves it in the pocket of her sweatshirt and takes the stairs two at a time. Some muscle memory from hopping around the blown up ruins in that foreign land. She doesn’t hear Jason’s response but by the time she walks down the hall to Park’s bedroom she hears the front door open and shut.

Good, she doesn’t appreciate his company either.

“Russell says lunch is ready,” she calls past the wood, shoving her hands in her pockets and rocking back on her heels. From inside she hears moving about, the creaking of the floorboards before Park is standing in front of her. Hair tucked behind her ears--too short to be pulled back into a ponytail but long enough to get in her eyes and bother her. She’d look beautiful with long hair, Day told her that once, veins swarming with envy and wishing she looked half as good. That day she watched Helen primp in front of a mirror for some sort of press conference that her and the NATO team had to attend. Even the president was going to be there.

That had been almost a week ago, and so far the only people who have been constants in her life were Russell and Helen, keeping her steady until...something changed...they haven't said what the end goal is. They haven’t spoken about sending her to an orphanage or finding next of kin outside her dead parents, and Day is afraid to ask to be honest. 

She likes them, she likes it here, in this normal suburban Russian neighborhood where she doesn’t have to worry about a damn thing. It’s a second home, Russia, she has fond memories of riding her tricycle with help from her father and painting with her fingers as her mother watched on with mirth. America is great, but she only has vague recollections of when she was a toddler living there. Russia is nice and familiar, and she can’t help but go back to that airplane flight to Japan that went down in the middle of Afghanistan. 

The thoughts are too much, like they always are, and she only jolts back to reality when Park gives her shoulder a squeeze. Offering a smile, it’s quiet and reserved in a way that she's seeing more and more. Which makes Day wonder what she gets up to all alone in her room. Some top secret military shit she can’t be privy to ‘for her protection.’ When Russell had said that Day actually snorted, which earned her a swat to the back of her head that lacked any real anger and strength.

Downstairs the table is set, four places instead of their usual three, and it makes Day pause. She hovers by the kitchen island, fingers drumming nervously on the granite. She bites her lip, a nervous habit that she’s had for as long as she remembers. Her lips are still raw though, despite the chapstick Park shoved in her hand a few days after living with them.

Park doesn’t react, sitting down with Adler and motioning for her to follow suit. She forces her feet forward, slipping into the chair and trying to relax.

“Who’s joining us?” She asks, giving the empty plate a hard glare. Surprises are one of her least favorite things.

“A friend of ours. Alex, he’s been wanting to meet you.”

Alex...Daytona’s heard the name before, tossed around a while back. When the NATO team got together almost nightly to talk about nonsense and, when she went to bed, most likely business. Alex Mason, a good friend and respected colleague.

She never did find out why he hadn’t ever tagged along. Especially if he’s been dying to meet her like Russell says. It makes her palms sweat. Is he a suit? Like Hudson? Someone who’s not a soldier and more akin to a slimy politician with their half truths and ulterior motives. 

God, she hopes not, she can’t deal with another man like that.

She huffs and starts spooning food onto her plate. Clanking silverware a little harder than necessary as she does so, just to show her anxiety.

“He’s good people,” Park soothes when she quiets down for a second to start shoveling food in her mouth. She’s still terribly thin, bones showing through her pale skin, another gift from war. Park’s voice is soft and calming, and the sound of it has Day relaxing despite herself. She’s always had that effect, almost as good as Russull when he pulls her from a night terror.

Alex is, as she was told, a nice man. Humorous and kind. Offering her a smile and even holding his hand out to shake. It’s a surprise, one that catches her off guard but it’s not at all unwelcome. His hair is shaved close to his head, like he’s fresh back from a tour, but Day doesn’t ask. Even if she has a hundred and one questions for him. A new person can be fun, and maybe that’s where the butterflies are coming from, now that the initial surprise wore off. But the questions are there nonetheless.

The same one, really, rattling around her brain and driving her insane.

_ Why are they so interested in her? What makes her special? _

Her hands are shaking in her lap, clenching into fists so tight that her knuckles turn white. In a whisper, after a particularly loud inhale, she asks “am I in trouble?” She keeps her head down, instantly regretting taking advantage of the moment of quiet. She should’ve let someone else pick up the conversation and move onto the next benign topic.

Russell clears his throat, setting his silverware down gingerly. The brush of metal on wood makes her wince, the noise grating on her raw nerves. He’s sitting directly across from her and so it’s easy to avoid his eyes when he leans forward.

“Of course not.” He reaches across to tap the edge of her plate with his index finger, trying to grab her attention. It doesn't work. Her eyes stay stubbornly down. “What makes you think that?”

“It’s just…I don’t see any other people here. No one else is being kept in this safehouse. So either I’m important or dangerous.” Her voice catches, warbling as her waterline grows teary. Seconds away from spilling wetness down her cheeks. “I killed people,” she mumbles, “That’s not…” she wants to say legal, or some variation of the word to get her point across, but she stops herself. It sounds silly when she’s sitting at a table with soldiers who’ve killed more than her, and more effectively too. Too much like an accusation, a disrespectful one at that.

“You had to.” Russell settles back in his chair and only then does she drag her eyes up to meet his. “Didn’t have a choice but to join that fight.”

She bobs her head in a nod. It’s all stuff she’s heard before, things he tells her late at night when she can’t stop crying long enough to get words out and somehow he _ understands  _ everything in her messy head _.  _

“Those people, they used you. All those kids there, whose homes were blown sky high and could only find safety through running to their army.” He jabs a finger in her direction. “You included.” 

Day sucks in a breath then shoves her tongue to the roof of her mouth to stop herself from crying. “Then why am I here?” Her stomach sinks when no one immediately answers, she has this awful fear that they're going to use her. To maybe go as far as train her to be a better soldier.

That’s when the tears finally drop, a sob leaving her lips.

Russell is crouched by her side quickly, moving so quiet that she hadn’t even realized he got up until he was right beside her. Angling her chair out from the table to face him. In the background Helen and Alex are clearing the table, moving out into the living room to give her a chance to calm down. Some faux semblance of privacy.

He pushes her hair back, away from her eyes so she doesn’t have a chance to retreat into herself. It’s like that, with his large frame blocking everything else out, that he speaks softly. In that same voice that does wonders to her war torn mind.

“What if I told you that I’ve got a job for you?”


End file.
